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Monday, September 28, 2015

In their 2012 book, Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis created a Taxonomy of Global Connection that shows a hierarchy of 5 different levels of online interaction. It begins with connecting students in a class using Web 2.0 tools and ends with students managing their own global connections with other learners across the world. The interesting part of this hierarchy is that it isn't just about the technology. It has multiple strands of complexity:

Geographic Location: This strand begins within the classroom and then extends into the school/district and finally traverses the globe.

Project Management: The second strand involves who is in control of the interactions. The bottom two levels are local interactions controlled by the classroom teacher. The middle level involves an online global collaborative experience that is managed by an external educator or group of educators. The top two levels involve student-to-student connections in an effort to achieve agreed upon goals. Level 4 is managed by teachers who manage, facilitate and monitor the project as well as managing the timeline. Level 5 uses teachers as facilitators but the students are actually running this peer-to-peer project.

This is a fascinating way to look at global learning. How does it fit your collaborative projects or your idea of how global collaborative projects should be organized?

The other day I was trying to find Iowa Education specific hashtags when I realized that I didn't have to do this alone. There are thousands of Twitter-using educators in Iowa who could help me.

I created a Google Doc (editable by anyone with the link), Iowa Education Hashtags. I then created a tweet asking colleagues to help me create this collection of hashtags. I tweeted it a couple of times and the content began to grow.

Presently, the list looks like the one that is below, but it is growing. Please visit it, Iowa Education Hashtags,and add any that Iowa-specific Education Hashtags that you might know. Please include your name and the URL of a website that might be linked to the hashtag. Thanks.

Z

Here is a snapshot of the Hashtags on the Iowa Education Hashtagssite. Take a look to see what the updated list includes:

Specific Schools/Districts

#BCLUW - BCLUW school district#VanMeter - Van Meter School District#2020HowardWinn - Howard Winneshiek School District#Westmonona - West Monona school district -@techytweecher#soloncsd - Solon Community Schools#newellfonda--Newell-Fonda School District